Put Nanostructures to Work for Reading and Controlling Cell Behavior Younan Xia Department of Chemistry, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195 Abstract Nanostructures have received extensive attention for their promising applications in electronics, photonics, and information storage. I believe these minuscule structures also hold great potential for advancing biomedical research. In particular, I have always wanted to harness the power of nanostructures to radically change the way cell behavior is probed and regulated. Here I propose to develop the next generation of toolset for studying and manipulating cell activity by bringing together three classes of complementary nanostructures: gold nanocages capable of absorbing near infrared light and effectively converting it to heat; smart polymers capable of changing conformation in response to small variation in temperature; and enzymes. The stimuli-responsive polymer will be covalently attached to a specific position near the active